Literary Contests

The Bakwin Award for Full-Length Prose will be open from November 15, 2023, through 11:59 pm ET on January 15, 2024, or until we reach our cap of 300 submissions.

This award is for an unpublished full-length literary prose work of fiction or nonfiction, prioritizing manuscripts by authors that fit Blair's mission of publishing new and historically neglected voices.

Entries should be literary in nature. Novels, short story collections by a single author, memoirs, essay collections, and biographies are all acceptable (NO POETRY COLLECTIONS, PLEASE). Blair does NOT publish strict genre fiction (mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.), but we acknowledge that some elements of genre fiction may be present in literary fiction. The last Bakwin Award winner was Maegan Poland for her story collection What Makes You Think You're Awake? selected by Carmen Maria Machado. For more previous winners, scroll to the bottom of this web page.

This contest is free to enter. There is a suggested donation of $25.00. Donation information will not be known to our team of readers nor the final judge. Submissions will be accepted through Submittable; no mailed submissions will be accepted.

DO NOT INCLUDE CONTACT INFORMATION anywhere in your manuscript file. Any manuscripts submitted with identifying information will be automatically declined. Use the cover letter field in Submittable to provide a short bio. If portions of your manuscript are previously published in journals or other outlets, you may include those acknowledgments in the cover letter field of Submittable. The manuscript as a whole should be unpublished.

The 2024 Bakwin Award final judge will be National Book Award-winning writer Tiya Miles. The winner will receive publication and a $1,000 advance against royalties.

Though you may have multiple manuscripts that fit this call, you may only submit one manuscript to this award.

Submit here: https://blair.submittable.com/submit/278927/bakwin-award-for-full-length-prose

About the final judge:

Tiya Miles is the author of seven books, including a work of historical fiction originally published by Blair titled The Cherokee Rose, and four prize-winning histories: All That She Carried, The Dawn of Detroit, The House on Diamond Hill, and Ties That Bind. She has also published a lecture series on haunted plantations titled Tales from the Haunted South and various essays in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, and other media outlets. Her research has been supported by a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Award, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake, won eleven prizes including the National Book Award for Nonfiction, the PEN John Kenneth Galbraith Award, the Frederick Douglass Prize, and the Cundill History Prize. Her latest book, Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation was named a best nonfiction book of 2023 by Publishers Weekly. Miles is currently the Michael Garvey Professor of History and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at Harvard University.

This award is for a book-length literary novel.

Submissions for the Lee Smith Novel Prize are currently closed.

This award is for a first or second full-length poetry collection.

Winners selected by Blair poetry editor Ada Limón.

This contest is currently closed.